1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a communication protocol operating between a mobile computing device and a network of document services, and more particularly, to a protocol for performing a token-based document transaction that is adapted to deliver documents to email recipients from mobile computing devices that store document tokens.
2. Description of Related Art
While the use of mobile computing devices is becoming more prevalent among mobile workers, transfer of document information between mobile computing devices is often limited due to inadequate storage capacity on such devices or due to inadequate communication channel bandwidth. To overcome these limitations, many mobile workers carry a laptop computer with them while traveling. Although laptop computers are increasingly smaller and lighter, their functionality, which is designed to meet the requirements of office-based document work, is determined largely by the desktop machines from which they evolved. Powerful editors and spreadsheet applications, for example, that are essential in certain office-based work environments have limited utility while away from the office. In some circumstances, mobile workers carry laptop computers simply to be able to access their documents, and not necessarily to create or edit them.
One mobile document transaction service for overcoming these limitations is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,321 (published in European Patent Application EP 691,619 A2). More specifically, U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,321 (entitled: xe2x80x9cSystem and Method for Accessing and Distributing Electronic Documentsxe2x80x9d) discloses a system for transferring between computers document identifiers that represent a particular document, rather than the document itself. This system can include any number of workstations, file servers, printers and other fixed devices (including multifunction devices) coupled to a network, as well as a number of mobile computing devices carried by users and coupled to the network by an Infrared (IR) or radio (RF) link. Each mobile computing device appears to hold a user""s personal collection of documents, with the devices being programmed to receive, transmit, and store document identifiers (e.g., a URLxe2x80x94xe2x80x9cUniform Resource Locatorxe2x80x9d) or document tokens, as defined herein. receive, transmit, and store document identifiers (e.g., a URLxe2x80x94xe2x80x9cUniform Resource Locatorxe2x80x9d) or document tokens, as defined herein.
Each document token is associated with an electronic document stored in an electronic repository or database. The mobile document transaction service effectively distributes references to documents between mobile computing devices by transmission of document tokens, rather than the documents themselves. For example, a document can be sent to an IR transceiver equipped network printer by xe2x80x9cbeamingxe2x80x9d a document token, which references the document, from a handheld portable computer to the network printer. The network printer retrieves the complete document referenced by the document token, and immediately prints a copy of the document. Thus, to a user of the mobile document transaction service, documents are seamlessly passed between users and output or input to devices coupled to networks as expansive as the Internet.
Advantageously, token based document references can be passed between two mobile computing devices without having to transmit large amounts of data. Since the document references are small and defined, the documents that they reference can have an arbitrary size and not impact the performance of the mobile computing devices. Although many devices may be equipped to transmit, receive, and manage document tokens (i.e., token-enabled devices), many computer users may not have their systems equipped with such functionality. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a token-based document transaction service for distributing in electronic form documents identified by a token to computer users not operating token-enabled devices.
In accordance with the invention there is provided a method and apparatus therefor, for operating a token-enabled server. The token-enable server communicates with a mobile computing device having a repository of document references. Each document reference in the repository of document references identifies a document and a computing device on which the document is stored. A list of available document transaction services is presented on a display of the mobile computing device. One of the available document transaction services, displayed on the mobile computing device, specifies a token-to-email service. From the user at the mobile computing device, a request is received to apply the token-to-email service to a document reference selected from the repository of document references and an email address specified by the user. In response to receiving a request to apply the token-to-email service to the selected document reference and the email address, the token-to-email service request is transmitted from the mobile computing device over a wireless communication system to a token-enabled server. The token-enabled server is coupled to a network and communicates with an email system of the user. If necessary, the token-enabled server retrieves a document identified by the document reference. Subsequently, the token-enabled server sends, with the email system of the user, the identified document or document reference in an email message to the email address specified by the user.